bio-reactor designs/open pond designs

[johnnyboy]

share plans and ideas on the best way to build and operate a recreational/small bioreactor or pond.

[DR Johansen]

You want to share plans and ideas on the best way to build and operate a recreational/small bioreactor or pond? Well, the best "pond" for algae production is the ocean. Take your boat out and trawl for some algae. Use it to make fuel for your boat and do it again. Some folks think fishing is recreational. There you go!

[No Regrets]

Not all of us live on the pacific coast, I live on the Texas Gulf Coast and wonder if the seaweed that washes ashore contains enough oil to harvest.

[johnnyboy]

ok, picture a roof. with a normal pitch of about 45 degrees. on the sunny side you lay clear pvc pipe from the top of the highest point of the roof to the bottom near the gutter, and you lay as many peices down like this to cover the whole one side of your roof. you have all of the top's joined with T peices, one end blocked and one end attached to a small 15 litre drum. (this is where water will be pumped to maintain water level, this has opening at top to allow air to escape) the bottoms of the pvc have taps, conected to T peices conecting all of the tubes. one end is blocked, one end the pipe runs down to ground level and onto filter, underneath is holding tank which water is pumped back up to 15 litre drum after harvest.

Air hoses are conected into pvc taps with compressor pumping co2 mix.

after testing density of solution, each tube is harvested, leaving some in each to continue life cycle.

depending on building structure you can change diameter of tubes and therfore weight of tubes for safe opperation. or speak to an archetect or engeneer to find what kind of load you can put on.

greenhouse plastic can be placed over tubes to control temperature to an extent or build greenhouse over the whole area.

tubes should be arround 3 meters long at least with diameter of about 10 centermeters and have about 6 meters worth. thats 60 tubes. with about 24 lites in each. thats about 1400 litres.

can be scaled up with more tubes or larger diameter.


any thoughts??

[Howard]

This company's process comes as close to anything I have seen yet that follows the design I think will work.

http://www.originoil.com/technology/the ... ystem.html

Large or small scale, this is your flow diagram.

If you browse this site, you notice a few things:

algae grow best in a non-agitated state

There are phases of growth

Phases can take place in 1 day, leading to a continuous flow process

Something else this site offers:

http://www.originoil.com/technology/alg ... asics.html

Note production numbers. 1,850 gallons per acre per year (actual), with potential for 5,000 to 15,000 gallons per acre. NOT 100,000 gallons as some have suggested. Still, better than any alternative biofuel from a production standpoint. From a cost per BTU produced....that remains to be answered.

[mathu]

hi,
here is one more company called bionavitas announced that it has solved a major problem in the algae-to-energy "self-shading"-they introduced a "light immersion technology", that dramatically increases algae yields in a cost-efficient and scalable model.

http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=50142267

[Rojer]

Interesting.... but they stated,

In closed bioreactors, the rods evenly distribute more readily absorbed red and blue spectrum light from high efficiency LEDs. While the LEDs increase the cost of production, algae grown in these systems are used for higher value markets such as nutraceuticals.

How cost effective it is for biofuel production?

[Neville]

OriginOil's claim of 1,850 gallons per acre per year is impressive
if it is to be believed; but I didn't see a cost per gallon on the site.

Did I miss it?

Neville

[liquidbiotech]

I am looking to purchase 20" clear Spherical Tanks. I have seen similar tanks used for growing red algae for a nutritional supplement. If anyone has any information on the use of spherical tanks or suppliers please post some info.

[phyco]

I heard of algaelink - A company manufacturing tubular photobioreactors for algae cultivation. They have this algae tube photobioreactor with diameter 320mm(12.5 inch) in diameter.

please see:Algaelink